


An Ass out of You and Me

by WritersBlock_Liz



Series: Penny Parker 2020 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Explicit Language, Multi, Pansexual Wade Wilson, Protective Tony Stark, Protective Wade Wilson, Underage Drinking, Wade Wilson is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26311885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritersBlock_Liz/pseuds/WritersBlock_Liz
Summary: When Tony comes across pictures and videos of Deadpool and Spider-Girl he draws the wrong conclusions about their relationship. Penny had hoped to keep this part of her life secret. But with the internet nothing ever really stays a secret.And now Penny is pissed off, Tony isn't happy either, Wade tries to help best he can, Weasel wishes he'd never gotten involved in the first place and the other Avengers just want to keep their youngest member safe.Nothing goes according to plan.
Relationships: Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Avengers Team & Original Character(s), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Penny Parker 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900864
Comments: 7
Kudos: 103





	An Ass out of You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> This was requested by DaughterofHades101.  
> Thank you for the lovely comments and the suggestion.  
> I loved it and thought of many ways I could write this and it became this.  
> Warnings: really just a bit of bad language. Lots of 'Fuck' in this one. I blame Wade Wilson.  
> Enjoy

###  Penny Parker - An Ass of You and Me 

### 

There was nothing about that particular Wednesday morning that could have predicted the absolute disaster it would become.  
But by the end of it Penny was ready to just about kill everyone, starting with Tony Stark himself.  
.  
Everyone has that one particular friend.  
The one parents label a ‘distraction’ or a ‘bad influence’.  
The one that when he comes over, grandma hides the good china.  
The one that gets blamed whenever something happens.  
The one nobody is surprised about when they hear something bad happened and they were involved.  
The kind of friend who is constantly used as a bad example and the one friend your parents never ask you how he’s doing.  
The kind of friend that makes someone ask: “So... how did you meet??” and “Why do you continue being friends with them anyway?” in the most disgusted and condescending way possible.  
Everyone has a friend like that.  
Penny’s misguided friend just so happened to be a certain merc with a mouth.  
.  
.  
“What. The. Fuck. Penelope?”  
Penny winced. Full name, never a good sign.  
For a second, she considered stepping back into the elevator she had just come out of and going...well...anywhere was probably better than here.  
“Tony, language.”  
Tony, Steve, Rhodey and Sam were gathered in the living room, all obviously waiting for her.  
Mr. Stark looked furious.  
Penny went through a mental list of things she could have done to make him mad but came to the conclusion that he couldn’t know about any of them.  
Sam looked just as mad and his fists kept clenching and unclenching.  
Steve looked mostly concerned and Rhodey was just stoic.  
Okay, not good.  
She dropped her school bag to the floor.  
“What did I do?” she asked slowly.  
Tony laughed hollowly. “Oh, she asks what she did? Well...why don’t we show her what she did.”  
“Tony…” Steve said again, “I understand you are mad and I’m with you but please...let’s settle this in a civilized manner.”  
“Civilized? There is nothing civilized about any of this! FRIDAY, play the tapes!” Tony growled.  
Between Penny and the four Avengers a holographic screen appeared and a video started playing.  
And from the first second on, her mouth went dry and she knew she was screwed.  
_The video began with Spider-Girl dropping into an alley from further up, landing in a crouch and slowly getting up.  
She turned around and another person, a man, in a red suit and with two katanas strapped to his back, landed next to her.  
Deadpool. No mistake there.  
“Oh my god, did we lose them?” Spider-Girl could be heard asking, sounding slightly out of breath, bracing her hands against her knees.  
“I think so...” came Deadpool’s response. He rubbed his neck overly dramatic.  
“What the shit Spidey, warn a guy next time before you grab him by the collar and web him across eight city blocks. You almost choked me off.” he complained.  
“Oh, shut up, you almost tell me every day how much you like being choked.” Spidey grumbled in response.  
“Don’t have anything to say against that…” DP admitted before adding: “High five on finishing another successful mission. Team Red is on a run!” he said brightly, holding up his gloved hand.  
“Oh fuck you…” Spider-Girl snapped.  
“Ow...my feelings.” he said, cupping his crotch protectively.  
Spider-Girl leaned against the opposite house wall and rolled up the bottom of her mask to breath more easily.  
“You get no high five for this. This was an absolute disaster! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get that smell out of my suit!” she exclaimed.  
The camera zoomed in on them. They appeared to be rather wet and both their red suits were slightly discoloured.  
“I swear, if there is shark gut in my hair, I will castrate you!” she growled at Deadpool, brushing off her suit. Wet bits of fish entrail splattered to the ground.  
Spider-Girl made gagging sounds. “I don’t think I can ever eat fish again.” She declared. “And that on the day my aunt wants to get us Sushi for dinner. Thanks a lot Wade.”  
“How is any of this my fault?”  
Even with the mask on it was clear that she was glaring at him, especially with the way her mouth twisted in displeasure.  
“Remember when I said “Wait here, I’ll distract them?” And you proceeded to just shout “Leeroy Jenkins!” from the top of your voice and attacked, blowing our cover and forcing me to seek shelter by the tanks full of fish-blood?”  
Deadpool shrugged, taking out his katanas one by one and wiping them down on the legs of his suit.  
“Not my fault you slipped and fell in. And I stand by what I said. And now I will pee.”  
He turned to face the trash-cans in the alley and there was the sound of him unzipping his pants. A second later the sound of pee hitting the metal trash cans filled the air, together with his relieved sigh.  
“Been holding in all that golden goodness since this morning.” he explained.  
She groaned, shook her head and pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning against and walked away.  
“Hey, wait up!” he shouted indignantly, hurrying after her while trying to zip his pants shut again.  
“Arugh...ah...foreskin in my zipper, foreskin in my zipper, Spidey! Help! Wait!” he hissed behind her, waddling along.  
The camera shook as the person filming leaned out of the window and turned the lens to follow them as they headed out of the alley.  
“Put your dick away! Children live here, they might see it!” she told him off.  
“But there is foreskin in my zipper!” he whisper-shouted behind her.  
“Just rip it, it’ll heal!”  
“But it will be painful!”  
“You just got speared by a whaling-harpoon an hour ago! I think you’ll be fine.”  
He fell into step next to her.  
“You are just no fun today.” he pouted.  
Spidey ignored him.  
“I know what will cheer you up!” he announced.  
From the top of his voice he started singing.  
“Baby Shark doo doo doo doo doo…”  
“Wade, I swear to fuck…”  
“Mommy Shark doo doo doo doo…”  
“Oh my god, Wade stop!” she groaned, their voices growing distant as they walked further and further away.  
He stopped singing.  
“Only if you promise to cheer up.” he said.  
“Okay okay, you got me! Just please, for the love of Thor! No more Baby Shark!” she shouted.  
“You promise?” he asked.  
Her response was lost.  
The video cut off._  
Penny took a deep breath.  
“Okay...I know what you are going to say…” She began.  
“Oh, do you Penny? Because this right there does not look like what we told you months ago!” Sam said icily.  
“I know but I swear this was like a one-time thing!” she promised, hoping they would believe her.  
“Penny, please don’t lie. We know it’s not a one-time thing.” Rhodey said.  
“Yes. Does this look like a one-time thing to you?” Tony growled.  
On the screen a series of pictures appeared.  
It started with a short twitter-thread.  
_George Micheals @ spicyCanada: ‘Yo, did anyone else know that DP and Spider-Girl are like homies?’  
Jordan B. @ There’s a B: @spiceCanada: ‘What?’  
George Michaels @spicyCanada: Yeah, both just turned up on this roof opposite my apartment and started eating a sub.’  
Jesus Martinez @YeezusMe: ‘Pics or it didn’t happen.’_  
Attached to that was a picture of Spider-Girl and Deadpool sitting next to each other, legs dangling over the edge of a roof somewhere with the New York city skyline right behind them.  
Both supers had the bottom half or their mask rolled up and were munching on identical sandwiches.  
Deadpool’s bloody katanas lay in a heap next to him and there were blood specks on the white of his mask.  
Spider-Girl sat turned towards him, one leg dangling into the abyss, the other pulled to her chest. She was gesticulating wildly with the hand not holding the sandwich and Deadpool’s head was thrown back mi laugh, his mouth open showing half-chewed food.  
Within minutes the picture gained thousands of likes and retweets and several comments.  
_Melissa Danzel @MelD: ‘#TeamRed am I right?’  
Jabouki Klein @JK123: ‘Go, I wish I had a friend I could go to, all covered in blood, and they would just give me a sandwich and don’t ask me about it.’ _  
“Okay, so we both had lunch together that one time…” Penny began but Mr. Stark flicked his wrist and another picture appeared.  
It showed her as Spider-Girl swinging away from an industrial warehouse with Deadpool clinging to her back with his arms and legs wrapped around her piggy-back-style.  
The warehouse was also on fire.  
The caption on this one read: **‘Caught by CCTV: Spider-Girl and Deadpool smoking out human-trafficking Yakuza-subdivision operating out of NY harbour, saving 85 men, women and children.’**  
While most comments underneath focused on the heroic work of the two, there was some confusion about the unlikely pairing until someone brought up some of their previous encounters.  
_Sienna M.D @QueenofLaughs: ‘Remember when Spidey and DP would meet up for lunch? This ain’t new.’  
Carol Snyder @IwishThatwereMe: ‘Imagine you and your bestie teaming up to fight organized crime #FriendshipGoals’  
Xi Manor @XMan: ‘I can’t even...the way she carries him LOL Spidey is a strong independent woman who does the saving herself…’_  
“How can you even be mad at me or him when all we did was save innocent people from a life of slavery and death?” she asked.  
“That’s not what we’re here to discuss Penny.” Steve reminded her gently.  
“Yeah, we’re here to discuss how, after we explicitly told you to stay away from Deadpool and let him do his thing, after we told you how dangerous he was and showed you the evidence of his bloody and horrible escapades, how you still went behind our back and ignored the one simple rule we gave you and decided to hang out around him! Even working with him!” Tony hissed.  
Penny took a deep steadying breath.  
“I know what you said and I know what he is capable of. But he is also very sweet when he wants to be and he’s been helping me out a lot! He’s not a bad guy!” she tried to assure them.  
Somehow that must have been the wrong thing to say because their expressions changed to more miserable and pained than angry.  
“Pen” Rhodey said, his voice suddenly very soft, “You know what he’s doing is wrong, illegal, right? This isn’t good for you. It has to stop. And if you don’t stop it, we will. Because Spider-Girl or not you are underage and he is a fully grown man and this is not right.”  
Penny frowned.  
“What are you…?” she wondered but Tony flicked his wrist again.  
“This Penny...this is...dangerous and wrong and just not healthy for you. What he is doing to you is wrong.” Sam added strongly.  
On the holographic screen the screen-shots of a chat appeared.  
“Is that my phone? How did you get access to my phone?” she asked indignantly, a spark of anger igniting in her chest.  
“I’m the head of a multi-billion-dollar tech-company and a certified genius. You very well believe I had no problem accessing your texts.” Tony snapped at her.  
She reeled back slightly, hurt and betrayal making her eyes water.  
Helpless she had to look as Steve read the messages out loud.  
_“Hey baby-girl, tell me when you’re coming over so I can get ready.”_ Behind that were a winking emoji and a kissy-face emoji.  
_“In an hour. Have to do some patrolling first. May is on night shift and Tony is in DC for the week so I can be a bit more liberal with my curfew. Looking forward to tonight.”_  
“We wanted to patrol together.” she explained, her face heating up as she understood their implications. “It’s not what you think it is!”  
Steve ignored her and instead read the next message from the next day.  
It was from her to him.  
_“I can’t walk at all. Everything hurts. Never doing that again.”_  
Attached to that was a picture of Penny using a bathroom mirror. It showed her bare back that was covered in bloody stretch marks and purple bruises.  
_“I am never giving you a ride again! Look what you did to my back!”  
“What can I say, I just love it when you manhandle me like that.”_ he responded with an eye-rolling-emoji.  
Her reply was the middle-finger.  
_“Come on Spidey, stay adventurous. We still have a little exploring to do. Rest that booty of yours and tonight we’re going in again!”_  
“We were chasing down leads about a child-trafficking sex-ring and encountered heavy resistance. Had to fight our way out of there and then make a run for it. I grabbed him and webbed us away. He hates flying so He clung to me and accidentally scratched my back doing it. So, we went back a night later.”  
“Penny we checked the logs in your suit, you weren’t wearing it those nights.” Rhodey said softly. “You don’t have to defend him. We understand that you are a victim in all of this as well.”  
“I’m not a victim of anything! God, you honestly believe I am in a relationship with him? And you can't see any activities on the logs because I deleted them because I knew you’d react like this!”  
“Oh, so it’s Wade now?” Sam asked coldly.  
Penny threw her hands in the air, now angrier than anything else.  
“It’s not what you think it is! He’s not what you think he is! He is good, underneath all the murdering and dismembering and dumb dick-jokes!”  
“Penny, this is rape by definition. You’re underage, he’s a grown man. This is illegal. This” he pointed at the picture of her scratched up back “Is abuse! Whatever he has done to coerce you into sleeping with him...we can help. Just tell us where he is and we make sure he will never hurt you again.”  
Tears started welling up in her eyes and she hated it.  
“It’s not what you think it is!” she whispered but her voice broke halfway through it.  
Suddenly Tony was in front of her and he wrapped her in a hug.  
“I’m so sorry Penny. I should have done something earlier, I should have gotten that monster off the streets earlier.” he said, his anger gone.  
But her anger wasn’t.  
“No…” she whispered but Steve stepped up and put a hand on her shoulder.  
“We’re here for you Penny. This isn’t your fault. People like him are good at manipulating others into doing what they want. We can take care of it.”  
“No, you don’t understand!” Penny shouted, trying to push them away.  
“I can’t believe you went through my phone and read my messages! I can’t believe you’ve stalked me!”  
“Penny he is raping you! Of course, we had to do something about it! You’re a child!”  
“He’s not...stop saying that! I’m not a child! And he’s never hurt me!”  
“Yes, you are! You're sixteen!” Tony growled, his anger back again. “It’s bad enough we allow you to go out as Spider-Girl. But this…”  
The anger erupted inside of her.  
“Oh, you allow me? You...Tony Stark, you allow me to be Spider-Girl? Well...thank you for that great honour. It’s not like I wasn’t doing it for months before you came around and dragged me to Germany to fight Mr. Righteous over there when you had your little marital spat. Newsflash Tony I have been going out as Spider-Girl longer than you have even known of my existence. You don’t allow me shit because you are not my father, you are not my guardian, you are at the very best my employer or benefactor. You do not get to decide who I hang around with as Spider-Girl or as Penny for that matter. When you and Happy were ignoring me after Germany guessed who was there to help me out when I got in over my head. Wade. Guess who patched me up on rough nights. Wade. Guess who let me crash in his place and took care of me the first time I got shot. WADE! So, you can stand here all high and mighty and lecture me about my relationship with him but that will not change the fact that he is always there for me.”  
She turned around and walked towards her room.  
“Penny we’re not done here!” Tony shouted behind her.  
“Yes, we are!” she shouted back.  
She slammed the door shut hard enough for the wood to splinter.  
A second later she was out of the window and swinging towards Hell’s Kitchen.  
.  
.  
Silence followed the slam of Penny’s door.  
The four men looked at each other, before Tony buried his face in his hands.  
“Shit.” he whispered, barely holding back a sob.  
“That went about as well as expected.” Rhodey said.  
“Hey, I’ll go talk to her. She is in denial. It’s to be expected. She’s been in this relationship for years. She won’t see the truth just yet. But she needs to start understanding what it’s wrong. We need to be there for her. Let’s try with a little less anger and accusations, alright? She is the victim here.” Sam said, putting a hand on Tony’s shoulder.  
“Yeah, okay.” the mechanic said slowly. “I’ll come with you.”  
“Let me try alone first. You both went off like active volcanoes. I’m a more neutral party. I’ll call you in should I get her to talk.” Sam suggested.  
“Right, okay, we’ll wait here.”  
“It’ll be alright Tony. We found out; we can get her help now.” Rhodey comforted his friend.  
“While Sam tried talking to her, why don’t we go ahead with our search for Deadpool. See if we can track him down somewhere.” Steve suggested.  
“Good Idea. The scumbag needs to be put down. When I get my hands on him i will chop him up in a thousand little pieces and put each in its own container and hide them all over the glove so he can not heal himself.” Tony vowed.  
For once Steve didn’t say anything. He was just as mad.  
Sam nodded and headed down the hallway towards Penny’s room.  
Penny was sixteen now but she had been Spider-Girl since she was thirteen. If she’d know Deadpool just as long…  
He really didn’t want to think about it. What he could have been doing to her…  
He reached her door and grimaced at the splintered wood and frame. There were even cracks in the wall. It was a miracle she hadn’t broken the entire thing in two.  
He knocked gently.  
“Penny? Hey honey it’s Sam. Can I come in?”  
No response.  
“Penny I know you are probably overwhelmed right now but we just want to help.”  
Still nothing.  
“Penny, I’m coming in, okay?”  
He was hoping that would elicit a response. usually Penny hated it if you came into her room uninvited.  
But still nothing.  
“Penny?”  
carefully he opened her door.  
One look around the room and at the open window and he knew what had happened.  
“Aw shit…” he muttered and sprinted back into the living room.  
The others were grouped around holograms and were flicking through CCTV footage and looking for Deadpool.  
“Guys, we have a problem. Penny took off. She’s not in her room.” he explained.  
Tony’s face paled.  
“What? No! FRIDAY track Penny's phone!”  
“Ms. Parker's phone is located in her school bag by the elevator.”  
“Shit track her suit.” Steve ordered.  
“The Spider-Girl suit as well as the Iron spider are currently residing in Ms. Parker’s room in the Tower.”  
“Shit, she went out without her suit? People could recognize her!” Rhodey pointed out.  
“Is there any other chance to track her?” Sam asked. “A watch she wears? One with GPS?” he suggested.  
Tony shook his head. “Penny hates wrist watches. Says they obstruct her wrist movements and with her web-shooters there is never any space for a watch anyway.” he whispered.  
“How about CCTV?” Rhodey suggested.  
“Yes, brilliant Rhodey! FRIDAY, track Penny from the moment she left her room. Show me where she is or where she is going!” Tony barked, turning around to the screens.  
“One moment Sir. Ms. Parker is surprisingly good at evading cameras. I’ve lost her north of Union Park Square.”  
“God damn it. Okay, keep an eye out for her!”  
“Where do you think she is going?” Steve asked Sam.  
“In her situation? Take a guess.” Sam muttered; eyes fixated in the screens.  
“Deadpool.”  
“Bingo.”  
.  
.  
Penny remembered the first time she had ever set foot in Sister Margaret's home for Wayward girls.  
.  
_She had been thirteen and tracking down her uncle's murderer.  
A lead had sent her into Hell’s Kitchen and to this address.  
She looked at the bar, at the burley men and skimpily dressed women going in and out and then at her...outfit.  
She couldn’t go in there dressed in a red and blue onesie.  
But she might…  
There was a woman stepping out of the bar, holding a bag and smoking a cigarette.  
She was walking towards her car.  
She was dressed in short (really short, Penny could see most of her butt hanging out) shorts and just a bra under a see-through belly-free shirt.  
In her open bag Penny could see high-heeled shoes and a short mini-dress thrown in there carelessly.  
The woman put the bag on the roof of her car and fiddled with something in the trunk.  
Without thinking much, Penny activated her newly developed web-shooters and aimed them at the bag.  
Bullseye  
Quick as a lightning she reeled the shoes and the dress back in.  
She didn’t stay around to see if the woman noticed.  
She changed behind a dumpster and took a few careful steps in the high heeled shoes.  
Without her newly acquired spider-powers she wouldn’t have been able to walk a step. But with her newfound balance and grace it was very easy.  
Trying not to think too much about what she was actually going to do she tried to pull the dress further down to cover her at least a bit.  
But to no avail. Aware of her barely covered chest and butt, she made her way over to the bar.  
Nobody stopped her or even looked at her when she stepped into the bar.  
Inside it was loud, dingy and cigarette smoke hung in the air.  
Burly men with gang tattoos and openly carrying guns sat around tables drinking or playing card-games or just talking really loudly. Some played billiard or darts or got lap-dances from some of the women.  
Penny averted her gaze and slowly walked further inside.  
There was a bar and over the bar hung a huge blackboard with names, numbers and sums of money. Above it, it read ‘The Deadpool’.  
She didn’t know what it meant but it didn’t look good.  
Her Spidey-sense, something she was still getting used too, flared up a second before a hand smacker her but.  
She squeaked slightly but it was lost over the sound of the music.  
She turned around.  
One of the men sitting at a table she had just passed roared with laughter and so did his friends.  
“Yoh sweetness!” he said, obviously drunk “Go move your sweet fanny and get your good friend Mac another beer. And maybe a dance afterwards!”  
he smacked her but again and she stumbled off.  
Her face burned and she tried to hide it behind her loose hair.  
This had been a bad idea. Suddenly she was afraid.  
Still she walked towards the bar where a guy who didn’t look like he belonged there, manned the station.  
“One beer for Mac over there please.” she told him, trying to keep up her charade.  
He looked at her confused.  
“You work here?” he asked, pushing up his glasses with a finger. He wore jeans, a nerdy shirt under a flannel shirt and his hair was messy and he just looked nothing like the rest of the people around.  
“Yes.” she said, hoping he would drop it.  
“Oh, okay. Here you go. And bring this to Buck over there at table six. And tell him I’m cutting him off after this one. I don’t need him to break another table like last time.”  
She nodded and took the tray he had offered her with drinks.  
She brought the beer to Mac, ignored their wolf-whistles and made her way through the bar towards table Nr. 6, all the while keeping a look-out for her target. She couldn’t see him.  
“Here you go.” she said, putting down the tray.  
They grabbed the shots lined up on it and drowned them immediately.  
“Another one!” shouted the biggest of them who looked like Santa's evil twin.  
“You’re being cut off.” she said with a nod over her shoulder to the bar.  
Santa’s evil twin jumped to his feet.  
“What?” he hollered and he swayed dangerously. Penny took a step back, fear clawing at her throat. “Who do you think you are, bitch?” he slurred, raising his hand to smack her.  
She could have caught it but someone was quicker.  
A red blur caught Santa’s hand and twisted it, sending him to his knees. A punch to the face and Santa went down.  
He groaned, rubbed his jaw, threw up and then passed out.  
Laughter echoed through the room.  
The man from behind the bar appeared suddenly, knelt down next to the unconscious man and held a mirror to her nose.  
Penny could see the condensation of his breath against the mirror surface.  
“Still alive! Nobody wins today.” he announced.  
A disappointed murmur went through the room and the people went back to what they’d been doing. They left Santa’s evil twin where he was, covered in his own vomit.  
Penny felt her hands shaking and she clutched the tray harder to hide it.  
What is this place?  
As the crowd dispersed slightly, she suddenly caught sight of blond hair and a tattoo-sleeve all too familiar.  
Her lead. The guy she was sure had waited for Ben’s killer in the get-away car parked outside the bodega.  
He was her ticket to the man who had killed Ben, she just knew it.  
She made a step towards him but her path was blocked by a tall imposing figure.  
She almost yelled out in shock.  
His face was completely disfigured. His skin looked like...well it was hard to say. It just looked rough and scarred...as if he had been burned and the blisters had burned and now his face looked like it was covered in craters and he had no hair.  
He was dressed in a tight fitted red suit and she could see the handles of two swords sticking up behind his head. There were also guns.  
“Hey there!” he said brightly. “All good down there?” he asked.  
She stared at him.  
“Do I have something on my face? Did someone draw a dick on it while I was asleep?” he turned around to the guy behind the bar.  
“Hey Weasel, is there dick on my face?” he shouted.  
“No but I can see a dick with your face.” the man shouted back.  
The man in red shook his head and turned back to Penny.  
“Unbelievable. And that's what I call my best friend!” he sighed dramatically.  
“Anyway, I think you should get out of here. You’re too young to be in this business.” he said cheerfully and started pushing her towards the exit.  
“No, I have to stay, I work here.” she protested.  
“No, you don’t.” he said in a sing-song.  
“Let me go. There is this man, I need to get him!”  
“Oh sweetheart you can do much better than anything that’s in this room, believe me. There are a lot of less ugly fishes in the proverbial sea. Any aren’t you a bit too young to date anyway?”  
“Fuck off, I don’t want to date, I want to kill his friend.”  
He stopped pushing her along.  
“Now that I can understand. Makes sense why you’re here. But still...I wouldn’t try and pick a fight here. You might find yourself in over your head.”  
“You don’t understand, his friend killed my uncle. And now I will kill him!” she growled.  
He cocked his head slightly and studied her.  
Then he held out his hand.  
“Wade Wilson. You might know me as Deadpool.”  
Had her night not already been so eventful Penny might have been more surprised, even shocked. But as it was, she just stared at his hand.  
“You’re supposed to shake it. That’s what grown-ups do.” he explained.  
“Why would I do that?” she asked.  
“I don’t know. It’s just how our society dictates first meetings.”  
Penny didn’t know what compelled her to do it.  
But she shook his head. “Penny Parker.” she told him.  
“Hello Penny Parker. Now...what is this about your murdered uncle and how can I help?” _  
.  
.  
She shook her head, dislodging the memories.  
It had been the beginning of a weird partnership at first.  
Wade, back then still Deadpool to her, had helped her track down her uncle's murderer and also ‘convinced’ him to confess the murder to the police.  
She hadn’t been there when Wade had ‘convinced’ the man but she had seen the end result.  
It hadn’t been pretty. Before being tried and sentenced the man had spent a month in hospital.  
But Penny hadn’t felt any remorse.  
Mays relieved sobs when the police had told her they had caught Ben's murderer and had been good enough for her.  
She had thought that would be the last she’d ever see of Wade but when she started going out as Spider-Girl he tracked her down and tried to convince her to stop. When he couldn't he decided to look out for her.  
It was weird. She knew who he was and what he was capable of. But around her he was just different.  
They didn’t hang out much but as time progressed and she grew into her role of Spider-Girl so did their relationship.  
Wade was like the sibling she never had.  
He was often dumb and immature and always good for a laugh.  
But he could be serious and he looked out for her and made sure she was okay.  
In a world where she couldn’t tell anyone about her secret it felt good to still have someone who could understand and relate to her struggles.  
And even after Mr. Stark got involved in her life, Wade was still present as always and always ready to lend a hand.  
She loved him in a purely platonic way and she knew he loved her like that as well.  
Everything she had yelled at Tony earlier was true.  
Wade had always been there for her. And right now, she needed him.  
.  
With a sigh she jumped off the roof and strode right into Sister Margaret’s.  
Once you got to know the place and the people frequenting the place it wasn’t half as bad as it first seemed.  
And after a long night of patrols or a particular hard mission with Wade it was nice to relax here before heading home.  
Now it had become one of her favourite spots to hang out.  
Sure, it wasn’t exactly her scene and as Spider-Girl she had encountered some of the people in this room as well and it hadn’t always ended well.  
But here she wasn’t Spider-Girl. Here she was just a friend of Wade’s and that alone was enough that nobody really messed with her anyway.  
She nodded at some of the people and Kelly, one of the servers greeted her with two pecks to the cheek.  
Weasel stood behind his bar as always, wiping the top down with a rag so dirty it didn't clean as much as it made the wood even dirtier.  
He smiled when he saw her.  
“Ms. Parker! Just in time, come over here Penny, I have something for you.”  
As she sat down on one of the bar-stools he pulled out a shot glass and poured her a shot.  
“I have been experimenting with my distillery in the back” he explained as he slid the glass towards her “And I think I have finally brewed something strong enough to give even you a buzz.”  
Okay so the thing with Wade being a bad influence might not have been a lie. Wade had been an influence on her. But it wasn’t really bad or good.  
Wade had bought her her first drink.  
But he had also driven her home because as he always said: “Don’t drink and web kids!”  
Wade had shown her how to cheat at pretty much every bar-game but had also never allowed her to put her new skills to test at Sister Margaret’s because of: “Everyone cheats here but they cheat better than you and if they catch you cheating they will turn you inside out.”  
So yeah, Penny might have enjoyed the occasional drink at the bar here and there but thanks to her enhanced metabolism she had never been drunk or even buzzed before. It wasn’t her fault Weasel had made it his person life's goal to make something that could get her drunk.  
She took the glass and sniffed at it.  
“What is it?” she asked.  
“Try it. You’ll see.”  
She shrugged and knocked back the shot.  
The taste of strawberry was almost immediately covered by the burn of the alcohol.  
She swallowed and gagged slightly.  
“Oh my God, Weasel what the hell! This is...fuck… this is strong!” she admitted.  
“Yeah, well you’re very strong” he winked at her “So I thought I’d make a drink to honour it. I call it: The Spider-Web. Once you’re in it there is no way out...no way out sober that is.” he explained.  
“And what is it?” she asked, examining the now empty shot glass.  
“Basically 100% pure vodka with a dash of strawberry liqueur.”  
She raised an eyebrow at him. “So basically, you just gave me rubbing alcohol to drink…”  
“Yeah...any normal person would probably go blind after one sip but you...how do you feel?”  
Penny thought about that.  
“Buzzed.” she admitted.  
“Great.”  
“But that’s not why I’m here. Where is he?”  
“Why do you think he’s here?”  
“Because it's Wednesday. It’s Buy-one-get-one-for-free.” she pointed out. “Also, his swords are right there.” she pointed at the bloody katanas leaning against the shelf behind the bar.  
Weasel nodded. “You’re right, he’s over there.”  
He pointed over to the farthest corner of the bar.  
“Thanks.”  
She made her way over to the table he had pointed at.  
On the floor underneath the table lay Wade.  
He was still dressed in his Deadpool suit but his mask was off, clutched in one hand.  
He was snoring, drool running down his cheek.  
“Jesus Wade, it’s barely noon.” she muttered before kicking him in the legs.  
“Wake up.” she called out.  
Started, Wade sat up, knocking his head against the underside of the table, hard!  
“What the shit…” he said, rubbing his forehead.  
Then he turned slightly so he could look from underneath the table at her.  
“Pen-Pen? Why the fuck did you wake me up? You know you’re not supposed to wake a sleeping man! I was having the greatest dream in which I had a threesome with Ryan Reynolds and his super-hot wife. What’s her name again?” he grumbled and got up.  
“Blake Lively. Now sober up. We have a problem.” she said, turning around and walking back towards the bar.  
“And by we you mean?”  
“You, yes.”  
“What did I do?”  
She sat back down on the bar stool and Wade joined her.  
“Give me another one of those Spider-Web shots.” she told Weasel before turning to face Wade.  
“Tony, Steve, Sam and Rhodey think we’re sleeping together.”  
Wade, who had been sipping at a mango-daiquiri, spat out the mouthful he had just taken, right into Weasel's face.  
“Oh man…” the bartender moaned.  
Both supers ignored him.  
“Baby girl, you know I love you and you know how people I love make me get feelings in my little Wade but just the thought of you and I naked together doing it makes little Wade shrivel up and die.” he told her, aghast at the very idea. “Just the idea of seeing you naked…”  
“You’ve seen me naked.” she pointed out.  
“Yes, when I was fishing around for a bullet in your gut, that's hardly the same.” he said. “Why do they think that anyway?”  
“Yeah, well they hacked my phone and read our messages and apparently people have been posting pictures and videos of us together and they didn’t like that I hung around you. And then they somehow drew the conclusion that you and I fuck.”  
“To be fair, I read your chats and without context they are weird!” Weasel pointed out.  
She threw back the shot he’d handed her.  
The buzz intensified.  
“But there is context.” Penny pointed out.  
“Yeah, we’ve known each other for years now. Why are they mad now?” Wade asked, honestly confused.  
“They didn’t really know how good I actually knew you but there is this video of you and me after a Yakuza-fight and that sort of set them off. Also...they might have made me promise not to interact with you a few months ago.”  
“They what?” Wade asked bewildered.  
“They don’t trust you and saw that you helped me out or something and they thought it was a one-time thing back then and made me promise to stay away from you. I couldn’t exactly tell them I knew you so I just lied and thought that would be it. But then the video and all those pictures appeared and... I don't know okay? We had a fight. I don’t exactly know how they got to their conclusion but it kind of escalated and I might have run away.”  
“Oh dear lord” muttered Weasel and poured another drink “This will not end well.”  
“Shut up, they can’t track me, I left everything they could trace at the tower and avoided CCTV.”  
Penny handed him the empty shot-glass again.  
“Another one.” she muttered.  
The buzz was getting stronger.  
Wade put a hand over her glass.  
“Maybe hold the alcohol for a bit. What do we do now? Or did you just come to drink. We can do either thing; it's just I need to know.”  
Penny sighed and leaned forward, resting her forehead on the bar's top.  
“I just...how can we convince them that you are not in fact sleeping with me?” she moaned.  
“Maybe I can show them my shrivelled up little Wade when they come as proof that I am not attracted to you?”  
“Wade...I don’t think pulling out your dick when we’re talking about you sleeping with me, is going to convince them.” Penny groaned. “Not when your dick is the reason why we’re in trouble in the first place.”  
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked indignantly.  
“If you weren’t such a man-whore and attracted does everything with a pulse then maybe they wouldn't have been so suspicious in the first place.”  
“For your information I am also attracted to stuffed animals, guns and giant metal men.” he told her with a pout.  
“Yeah, that’s not helping.” she sighed.  
he shrugged. “Well… that’s all I can offer you.”  
“You are the worst.” she declared with a huff.  
“And yet you still love me. And little Wade.” he said with a smile and went back to drinking his mango-daiquiri, thrusting his crotch in her direction and moaning around the straw as he sucked on it.  
Penny sighed.  
When she had first gotten to know Wade better, she had thought his immature-horny-sixteen-year-old-dumbass-persona was just his way of coping with a life full of trauma and pain.  
But as she had gotten to know him, she had learned that Wade simply was a dumb immature horny sixteen-year-old. It just helped with the trauma and the pain.  
But people were deterred by his attitude and rather labelled him with various unflattering adjectives and nouns than to try and get to know the real Wade underneath all that sarcasm and sexual inuendo. 

She opened her mouth to shoot back an answer but before she could her Spidey-Sense reared up. A familiar whine of a repulsor cut through the noises of the bar and the next thing she knew a familiar white blast hit wade square in the chest, knocking him off the chair and sending him flying into the wall.  
Shelves rattled and bottles of liquor fell down.  
Penny squeaked and turned around, as did everybody else in the room.  
There in the entrance stood Tony Stark, still dressed in the same pristine three-piece Tom Ford suit but his right hand was encased in an Iron man gauntlet and as she watched it recharged, ready to send off another blast.  
“Get away from her.” he growled, as behind him Steve, Sam and Rhodey filed into the room.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
Tony was pacing.  
Tony didn’t like pacing but it was better than sitting around and waiting for FRIDAY to finish searching for Penny.  
The others had given up trying to get him to calm down.  
They too were angry.  
Angry at Deadpool and worried for Penny.  
FRIDAY’s voice stopped him dead in his tracks.  
“Sir, I have located Ms. Parker. She appeared on a CCTV camera in Hell’s kitchen a few minutes ago. Cameras saw her enter a place called Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls.”  
“Okay” Steve said slowly “That doesn’t sound so bad. What is it, like an orphanage? Is she visiting someone?”  
“Not exactly Cap. I’ve heard of this place. It’s technically a bar but it also operates as a job centre for killers-for-hire.”  
“Okay, that’s bad. FRIDAY gives us life footage. Are there security cameras?”  
“Accessing security cameras now.” the AI said.  
“Good girl.” Ton muttered.  
A life-feed of a bar appeared.  
“Oh shit...okay, yeah that is not good. I can already see four people I know have outstanding warrants for things like aggravated assault and attempted murder or inflicting serious bodily harm.” Sam muttered.  
A list appeared left to the live-feed.  
A list of faces and criminal records.  
“By god, everyone in that place is wanted for something.” Rhodey whispered in shock.  
“Where is Penny?”  
The camera panned across the room.  
“There, by the bar!” Steve said.  
“And look who’s right there with her.” Tony growled. “Alright, let’s go.”  
He walked towards the elevator.  
“Tony we can’t just barge in there and pick a fight! We’d be seriously outnumbered!” Rhodey called out, hurrying after him.  
Tony swirled around. “I’m not leaving her there. I’m bringing her here! I don’t care!”  
“I know Tony. And I want to get her too but this is not the safest way!”  
“Screw safe! Who knows what he might do to her? What if she tells him we’re onto him and he does something to her? Like kidnap her!”  
“Okay Tony, we’ll come with you. Just let us get some stuff. Let’s not go in there unarmed.” Steve said calmingly.  
“I’m never unarmed.” Tony growled as he tapped his wrist-watch and it transformed into a gauntlet.  
“Right, okay, we’ll get our stuff and you get the car.” Sam suggested.  
Tony nodded. “You have two minutes or I leave without you.”  
.  
Sister Margaret’s was even more of a dump from the outside but Tony hardly cared for that as he walked towards the door, ignoring the startled and suspicious looks from the people milling around outside.  
He stormed inside and immediately turned to the bar.  
And the sight made his blood boil.  
There sat Penny, her back turned to him and next to her sat Deadpool, still in his suit but without the mask, sucking and moaning around the straw of a drink in his hand while suggestively thrusting his hips at her.  
Tony didn’t even think twice. That pig would pay.  
He raised his hand, gauntlet already charging and fired one precise shot at the mercenary.  
Deadpool went flying backwards and crumpled to the ground in a heap.  
Shouts went up in the room and people jumped to their feet, guns were drawn and cocked but Tony kept his eyes on Deadpool, who slowly rolled onto his side, moaning.  
He could hear the others behind him, also with their weapons up, covering his back.  
Penny swirled around in her seat.  
“TONY! What the fuck, you shot him!” she shouted. Her voice was slightly slurred and he saw an empty shot glass stand before her.  
That was it.  
He aimed and fired again. Deadpool, who had just gotten back to his feet and taken a step forward, flew back on the ground.  
All weapons in the room were now trained on Tony but he didn’t care.  
It was only Penny’s yell of “STOP! EVERYONE!” that kept him from being shot.  
The girl had gotten up and placed herself between Deadpool and Tony, right in the line of fire and was staring him down defiantly.  
“Motherfucker, that hurt!” Deadpool moaned into the silence of the room and got back up.  
“Everybody stay calm, we’re here for the girl.” Steve said loudly.  
That was apparently the wrong thing to say because guns now pointed at him and some men even stepped up to block Penny from them.  
“She’s not going anywhere,” said one big beefy man with tattoos all over his arms. His wife-beater was covered in beer-stains and his hair was long and white. He looked like an alcoholic Dumbledore.  
“Step aside asshat. Penny, get your ass over here and out!”  
“Tony stop, what are you doing!” she shouted.  
“Stay back Penny.” said fat Dumbledore. “We’ll deal with these guys.”  
“Buck, no! That’s Tony Stark, Captain America, Colonel Rhodes and Sam Wilson, also known as Falcon. They are the Avengers.” Penny shouted.  
“I don’t care if they are the president. They can go fuck off.” the man named Buck growled.  
“Penny, please come over here. Gentlemen, we don’t want any trouble.” Steve said calmly.  
“Yeah, not exactly the message you sent when you come in here shooting at one of our own.” shouted the guy from behind the bar. He was holding a rifle, trained at Tony.  
“Shut your mouth, you comic book-virgin. I have every right to shoot the man who has been raping my kid.” Tony growled.  
“Oh my god, you are so embarrassing!” Penny yelled.  
“You don’t get to speak Penny, you are drunk! Bad enough I had to track you down here. Now shut up and get over here!”  
She glared at him. “That’s typical. Let me guess, you implanted a tracker under my skin as well so you can always fine me!”  
“Penny, I’m not having this conversation with you right now. I’m saying this for the last and final time, get over here or I swear to god I will lock you up in a cell and not let you out until you are thirty.”  
“Fucking make me.” Penny snarled back.  
The tension in the room was more than palpable. Everyone was on the verge of shooting each other.  
“Pen-Pen, you should go.” said Deadpool behind her.  
“Wade, stay out of this.” she growled.  
“No Pen, they are just worried. And rightly so. Go home, try talking about this and then we’ll see.”  
“Wade...no!” she said, turning around.  
He stepped towards her but the whining from Tony's gauntlet had him stop mid-step. He raised his hands in surrender.  
“Look man” he said to Tony “I know you don’t really give a fuck about what I have to say. But you got it wrong. I admit I sleep with a lot of people, like a lot!”  
“Wade!”  
“But Penny is not one of them. I’ve known her since she was a dumb little kid trying to avenge her uncles murder. I couldn’t let her get hurt doing something stupid so I stuck around to help. Nobody in this room would ever hurt her. So... go, take her home, listen to what she has to say and if you still want to kill me afterwards, you’ll know where to find me.”  
He looked at Penny.  
“Go.” he just told her.  
Penny huffed and then let out a small angry yell. She stormed past Buck, past Tony towards the door.  
“Well then...are we going or what?” she hissed at the four of them.  
Retreating backwards, his gauntlet still trained on Deadpool, Tony followed her.  
.  
The ride home was tense.  
Rhodey was driving, Sam sat in the passenger seat while Tony and Steve took the back bench with Penny between them.  
Penny sat up straight, staring straight ahead and not touching either of them.  
“Penny…” Tony began, now that they were out of the bar and on their way back, he was much calmer.  
“Take me to Queens Rhodey.” Penny said, ignoring Tony completely.  
“Penny...honey we need to talk about what happened.” Sam said softly.  
“Rhodey either you take the next exit or I swear to god, I will break out of this car and go there myself.” Her voice was hard as steel.  
Rhodey searched for Tony's eyes in the back mirror.  
Tony hesitated. “Penny…” he began once more.  
“You had no right.” She whispered. “You had no right to stalk me or hack my phone. What I do when I am out as Spider-Girl is my business. And mine alone. You don’t get you just appear in my life and take control over every last little thing. I'm not an Avenger. You all make that very clear everytime! But that also means that you don't get give me orders. Or tell me what I can and cannot do.”  
“Penny, SHIELD intel suggested…” Sam tried but she interrupted him too.  
“Do you know what SHIELD intel said about Tony? Narcissistic, self-centred and not suitable for the Avenger-Initiative. SHIELD intel is shit! You don’t know Wade. Not like I do. And I don’t care what you think that means…what you did tonight…that was way worse than anything he ever did.”  
Tony rubbed his eyes tiredly.  
“Queens, Rhodey. Take us to Queens.” he finally said firmly.  
He turned to look at Penny, to see if she would say something.  
But she kept on staring right ahead, completely ignoring him.  
Except for a small tear, there was no reaction.  
And suddenly Tony felt extremely rotten and he wondered if he had just made the biggest mistake in his life.  
.  
.  
It took them an hour to get to Queens and that drive was probably the worst drive Tony had ever taken.  
Not even the drive where he'd been ambushed in Afghanistan could compare to what this drive was like.  
When they pulled up in front of the apartment complex in which May and Penny currently lived, Tony was almost glad they were here.  
They got out, Penny getting out on Steve’s side, even though Tony held out a hand to help her out on his side.  
She ignored them, walked past them up the stairs to the front door and inside.  
Tony started to walk behind her but Rhodey held him back.  
“Honestly Tones...we should probably let her be. I have a feeling that...we might have been wrong about this whole situation.”  
“Yeah, me too.” Steve agreed. “This was really not what I expected when we went in there.”  
“Ditto.” added Sam. “They protected her. From us. Like she was one of them.”  
Tony rubbed his face. God, this was just a big mess.  
“I know” he finally agreed “But...I really don’t want her to be alone here. May is on double shift for the rest of the week.” he admitted.  
“Why don’t I stay?” Rhodey suggested. “I think out of all of us, maybe she can deal with my company the most...”  
“Sounds good. Maybe you can talk to her. And I’ll come by tomorrow.” Tony nodded.  
“I’ll call you.” Rhodey promised.  
And Tony had no other chance to watch his best friend walk into the building behind his kid while he got into the car and Sam drove them back to the city.  
.  
.  
Rhodey knocked on the Parkers’ apartment door.  
He half expected Penny not to open but the door flung open after a few seconds in a furious sixteen-year-old glowered at him.  
“Oh, so now we respect privacy and boundaries?” she snarled.  
“I’m not going to try and defend that. You’re right, we shouldn’t have hacked your phone. Nd we certainly could have handled ourselves better at the bar.” he admitted calmly.  
“Good. Now what do you want. Where’s the rest?” she hissed, looking past him into the hallway, searching for the others.  
“They went back to the city.”  
“First good decision they’ve made all day.”  
“Penny.” he sighed.  
“What?” she snapped again.  
“Can I come in? Before the neighbours will notice?”  
“What, afraid they’ll think you’re havening sex with me? The sixteen-year-old? The child! Afraid they’ll think you're a paedophile and send, I don’t know...the Avengers after you?”  
Rhodey took a deep breath.  
He’d known Penny for only a good year or so and in that time, he’d come to care for her like she was one of his nieces. Everyone in the team had taken to her. Everyone loved her. She was their kid.  
And because she was their kid, when they had first read those messages, seen those pictures and watched those videos, it had invoked an almost visceral response of anger and protectiveness in all of them.  
Maybe they had let that get the better of them. It certainly had robbed them of their ability to think logically.  
“I don’t want to argue with you Penny…” he began.  
“No, you just want to keep an eye on me so I don’t go back. Big Brother Style” she whispered and he could hear the quiver in her voice.  
She was close to tears.  
It hurt his heart.  
She turned on her heel, abruptly, and left him in the doorway.  
For a second, he considered leaving but then walked in behind her and closed the door carefully.  
Penny was in the kitchen, gulping down a glass of water.  
“I’m sorry Penny.” he told her sincerely.  
She finished her glass of water and put it in the sink.  
“I’m going to bed. Feel free to leave before I get up. Or before May comes home. Don’t want to scare her.” she said without looking at him. She left.  
He could hear her lock the door to her room.  
With a sigh he sat down on the couch and took out his phone.  
_“Yeah, we all might be in the dog-house for a while.”_ he wrote Tony.  
The reply was a simple: _“Fuck.”_ but Rhodey related deeply to it.  
.  
When May Parker got home that night, she almost had a heart attack when she saw someone sitting on her living room couch who was definitely not her niece.  
Clutching her chest, she whisper-shouted: “James...what the ever-loving fuck...I almost had a heart attack!”  
The colonel smiled sheepishly as he got up.  
“I’m sorry May. I would have texted you to warn you but I realized I don’t have your number.”  
“Why are you here?” May asked as she put down her bag. Her eyes travelled down the hallway to Penny's door.  
“Is Penny alright? Is she hurt? Did something happen?” she asked worried.  
“She is fine, May. But yeah...something kind of happened. And now she is really mad at Tony, Steve, Sam and me. But...we didn’t want her to stay here alone tonight so I offered to stay.”  
“Mad? Why, what did you do?” May wondered.  
Rhodey grimaced. “I’m not quite sure if I should tell you to be honest. Or at least if I should tell you right now.”  
She stared at him.  
“Okay, I’ll tell you. But you better sit down. And remember, Penny is fine.”  
“You know, that does nothing to ease me at all.” she sighed but sat down nonetheless.  
And Rhodey explained what had happened.  
.  
.  
.  
When Penny woke up her eyes were crusted shut with tears.  
For a second, she remembered it was a school day and already ten o’clock. But then she told herself that school was the last of her worries and she turned back around, rubbing the dried tears off her cheeks and eyes.  
She had cried herself to sleep last night.  
She had never been so hurt in her life.  
She had never felt so betrayed and violated in her trust and herself as a person.  
A part of her tried to argue in Tony’s favour that his actions had come from a place of love and care for her and that he only had her best interests at heart. Like always.  
But it was hard to argue on the behalf of someone who had hacked her phone, stalked her and her friend and then threatened and shot said friend.  
She sat up slowly and winced when the room spun.  
Weasels concoction certainly had worked.  
This was her first hungover and she couldn’t even enjoy it.  
She didn’t bother changing and went into the kitchen to get some water.  
She wasn’t really surprised to see Rhodey sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast.  
“I thought I told you to go before I woke up. Or before May got home.” she muttered, her voice scratchy and dry.  
“I invited him to stay. It was already so late when I got home.” May said behind her.  
Penny swirled around  
Bad idea. The entire room spun.  
She held onto the kitchen counter.  
“Oh...hey May...what are you doing? You need your sleep. You have a night shift.” she wondered.  
“I called in sick.” May said simply, moving over to the stove where eggs were frying in a pan.  
The smell made Penny nauseous.  
She didn’t have to think hard why her aunt was staying in.  
She turned to Rhodey.  
“You told her?” she asked accusingly.  
“I had to Penny.”  
She glared at him. “You’re not helping your case, you know that?” she asked before turning to May.  
“May, I swear to god and on the graves of my parents and Ben that I have never and will never fuck Deadpool or Wade Wilson!”  
May sighed.  
“I believe you honey. So does James.”  
Penny blinked. That had been easier than expected.  
“He does?” she asked. Then turned to Rhodey. “You do?”  
He nodded. “I do. I’m sorry Penny. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and now...from a more objective point of view and... really taking in all the evidence...It doesn’t really seem all that logical anymore.”  
Penny was almost speechless.  
Finally, she managed to say: “Good. And don’t you forget it.”  
Then she grabbed a bowl, the box of Lucky Charms, milk and a spoon and went back to her room.  
.  
.  
She heard Tony's car before he had even turned the corner onto their street.  
An expensive engine like the one in his car made a completely different sound than the cars that usually drove around their neighbourhood.  
She listened as he parked, listened to his fast beating heart.  
He was nervous. maybe even scared.  
_Good_ , thought a part of her brain while another felt guilty and another just felt like crying.  
She listened to his steps as they approached the door, how he hesitated slightly before knocking.  
May opened and Penny tuned out their conversations.  
Instead she tried to concentrate on her little project in front of her. The laptop she was trying to salvage and upgrade by using various things she had found dumpster-diving.  
There was a knock on her door.  
“Go away.” she shouted. “I’m busy.”  
“Please kiddo. I... we need to talk.” said Tony from the other side of the door.  
Penny clutched the screwdriver in her hand so tightly it snapped in half.  
“Yeah? So, you can yell at me again? Maybe threaten me with your gauntlet?” she asked loudly.  
She could hear how his breath hitched slightly.  
“Penny...please. I... I know I made a mistake. Believe me kid, I was up all night. Please open the door so we can talk.”  
“No…” she said and her voice broke “I don’t want to be yelled at again. I’m not in the mood.”  
“Kiddo...please…”  
“I said no! Go away Tony. Happy can bring me my backpack with my stuff for school. You can keep my phone since you already know everything I have on there.” she snapped, tears threatening to spill over.  
She heard him sigh. “Right.” he muttered under his breath and she heard him walk away.  
For a second, she wondered if he would actually leave and she listened as he walked past her room and... into Mays room? And towards her window? And opened her window an…  
Oh no!  
She knew what he was up to before he even put a second foot onto the fire-stairs outside.  
She had two options, close the window or leave the room.  
She opted for the latter one and dashed out of her room and into the bathroom across the hall.  
She locked the door behind her, breathing hard.  
The bathroom had no window, only an artificial ventilation system. She’d be safe here.  
She listened as her bedroom window was opened.  
“Oh come on kid.” she heard him breath out and listened as he walked through her room and into the hallway.  
“Bathroom.” she heard May say.  
A knock on the bathroom door.  
“Take a hint.” she shouted and her words echoed through the tiled room.  
Hopefully the neighbours wouldn’t hear.  
The last thing she needed was the police arriving and finding Tony Stark in front of their bathroom, trying to get in.  
“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. You don’t have to. But maybe...I can talk and maybe you can listen. Because I have to say this.” he suggested and sat down, from the sounds of it, with his back leaning against the door.  
She stayed silent, having lost her battle with the tears.  
“Penny I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for yelling at you and hacking into your phone and reading your messages and following you and tracking your suit. I shouldn’t have done this. It was absolutely wrong. An invasion of your privacy and I broke your trust and I am so sorry for that. I don’t want to defend my actions because they are indefensible. But I want you to understand why I did what I did.”  
He paused.  
Penny stayed silent as more tears rolled down her cheeks.  
“I care for you Penny. I care for you so very much. You know I am shit at talking about my emotions but I...in my own way...I love you very much. You are my kid. The kid I never knew I wanted or needed. The kid the universe dropped in my lap and who has since then brightened my entire life. And because I care for you so deeply, I want to keep you safe. I know you’re probably rolling your eyes at that but I just can’t help it. It’s almost an instinctive thing. And... you can’t argue that Deadpool...Wade Wilson if you will...is a dangerous individual if you don’t know him. And even if you know him. And when I saw those texts and videos...my mind couldn’t help but go to those dark places because society is shit and shit like that happens all day every day and it's all you hear about on the news and it messes with your ability to think and…” he stopped, taking a deep breath.  
“I’m so sorry Penny. I should not have yelled at you the way I did. I should have known that you would never consort with someone like Wilson if you weren’t sure about them. I should have trusted you. I should have believed in you. I should have let you talk and let you explain things to me instead of just assuming the worst and getting the others involved. Last night could have ended very differently if...and I cannot believe that I’m saying this...if you were not friends with those people. They were ready to shoot us but you and Wilson stopped that.”  
He was silent for a couple of moments.  
Slowly Penny slid down on her side of the door, leaning her head back against the wood.  
“I know I betrayed your trust. I know I have to earn it back. I hope I can. If I can’t and you don’t want me around anymore that's fine too. Please...just know that everything I did came from a place of love and I will always be here and I will always support you with whatever you need. You were right when you said that I was not the one who allowed you to be Spider-Girl. That is your call and I am in no position to order you to do anything. I just want to keep you safe Penny. I'm sorry for overcrossing a line. I just...I love you and... if you want, I would love if you came by tomorrow after school for our lab-days. But I also understand if you don’t. Just know the offer is always there and I’m here if you need to talk.”  
Penny had to bite her fist to muffle the sob that had built up in the back of her throat.  
“Kiddo?”  
Fingers slid through the gap under the door until Tony’s entire hand was almost through, resting there on the tile-floor next to her.  
She stared at them through tear-blurred eyes.  
“Penny please.” he whispered and he sounded close to tears as well.  
She stayed where she was, frozen in place until the fingers slowly retracted.  
“Okay.” Tony whispered on the other side.  
She listened as he got up.  
“I’m...I’ll head out then. I’m sure...you...I understand if you need time Penny. Just...call me. Day or night, it doesn’t matter. And... the others send their love. They’re very sorry too.”  
He patted the door, then turned around and left.  
She stayed where she was until the sound of his car engine turned the corner and melted in with the other noises of the city.  
.  
.  
Penny was in her bed, still awake even though it was way past midnight, unable to sleep.  
The sound of pebbles hitting her window startled her and she turned around.  
The blinds were drawn shut.  
She wondered if it was Tony outside but the heartbeat out on the stairs was different. But also familiar.  
With a sigh and knowing he wouldn’t leave until told so she got up and pulled the blinds apart.  
Wade sat outside in full gear, throwing pebbles against her window.  
She pushed it open and a pebble hit her in the stomach.  
“Ow.” she said dryly, leaning onto the windowsill with both hands. “You could have just knocked. No need for throwing stones and scratching up my window.” she muttered.  
“I wanted to hold up a boom-box first but then I thought your aunt and your neighbours wouldn’t appreciate that at three in the morning so I opted for pebbles.”  
“How very thoughtful of you. I guess you want to come inside?”  
“Pretty please.”  
She stepped aside and louder than he had to, he squeezed himself inside.  
She shut the door and sat down on her bed while he plopped down on the ground and ripped off his mask.  
“What a day, huh?” he asked. Then he added. “You look like shit.”  
She glared at him. “I’m really not in the mood tonight Wade. What is it? Do I need to come out for patrol? Did something happen?”  
“Nothing happened. Well...not true, it’s New York, there’s always something happening right now.”  
“Wade.”  
“Right. Sorry Honey-Pie. I just thought after everything I’d come and make sure you weren't locked up in some high-security facility somewhere at the bottom of the ocean or something.”  
“Funny.” she said dryly.  
“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding unusually serious.  
“I should ask you, you’re the one that got blasted by Iron Man twice.”  
“And it was the best thing that happened in a while!”  
She shook her head.  
“I’m fine Wade. I’m really tired. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”  
“Fine.” he relented and got back up. “See you out there, kid.”  
“See you DP.”  
That brought a smile to his face and he pulled the mask back on.  
“See you Spidey.”  
.  
.  
Penny didn’t go to school the next day either.  
When she got up it was around ten and May was gone, back to work.  
She had left a note on the breakfast table next to a brown paper bag next to her school-backpack she had left at Tony’s.  
_“Hi honey, I hope you’ll feel better today. Don’t worry I called school for you and told them you were sick. They’ll send make-up-work through to your school-email-account. Also Happy dropped by and left this for you. I larp you and everything is going to be alright.”_  
Hesitantly she put her aunt's note aside and opened the bag. Her Spider-Girl suit, neatly folded and her phone sat inside. Together with a note.  
She took out the note.  
_“Penny - We’re sorry for what we did. When you feel ready, we would like to apologize to you for real and in person. Until then we thought you might need these.”_  
She took out her phone and turned it on.  
There were a lot of messages, mostly from Ned, MJ and their decathlon group-chat, a few other people from school and one from Steve, Sam, Rhodey and Tony each.  
She read and responded to Ned and MJ first, assuring them she was fine and that it was a spider-related reason why she had missed two days of school but that she was unhurt.  
She shot a quick reply to May, thanking her for excusing her from school.  
Then she stared at the remaining messages.  
And ignored them.  
Instead she grabbed her suit and was out and about a minute later.  
.  
.  
She didn’t get much patrolling done, in the back of her mind she always imagined Tony and the others tracing her movements, listening in on her conversations with Karen and it became so distracting after a while that she dropped down in a random alley in Queens and took her suit off.  
Standing there in her athletic shorts and sports bra she breathed heavily and stared at her suit.  
This was ridiculous and yet at the same time it wasn’t.  
She crouched down by the wall, ignoring the cold and dirty ground underneath her bare feet and sighed.  
What was she going to do? She couldn’t stay here like this.  
Slowly she pulled her phone out of the hidden pocket in her suit and quickly dialled the third number in her phone.  
“Hey...can you come pick me up? And... bring a spare set of clothes and shoes if you can. And a bag…”  
She looked around. “Where I am... honestly? I have no idea. Can you trace my phone?”  
.  
Half an hour later an uber pulled up the curb outside the alley she was hiding in.  
Ned jumped out; a bag slung over his shoulder.  
She heard him tell the driver to wait, then turned around and walked into the alley.  
“Penny?” he called out.  
“Over here.” she called back, waving from where she had hidden behind a trash can.  
His eyes widened when he saw her crouching there, barely dressed and pressing her suit to her chest.  
“Oh my god, Penny what happened? Were you attacked? Why weren’t you at school? Do I have to call Mr. Stark?”  
“No! Don’t call him.” she snapped.  
Ned’s eyes widened. “Penny…”  
“I’m fine. I’m sorry Ned. I...a lot happened. Can I have the clothes?”  
Wordlessly he handed her the bag and she changed quickly into the sweats, jumper and crocs he had brought her.  
“I’ll explain. Just...let’s get out of here…” she muttered more softly.  
They got into the uber and the driver asked where to.  
Ned looked at her.  
“Ahm...my place?” she suggested. “I’ll play.”  
Ned nodded and told the driver the address.  
.  
Once they got back to Penny's apartment, she told Ned everything that happened over the last two days.  
Ned knew she had teamed up with Deadpool occasionally but he too didn’t know how deep that relationship actually went.  
He listened intently, only asking a couple of questions in between.  
Finally, she leaned back into the couch and sighed.  
“So yeah...that happened.”  
“That is messed up.” Ned agreed. “I understand why you feel hurt.”  
She nodded.  
“But I also understand why Mr. Stark reacted the way he did. I don’t say what he did was good but he really cares for you Penny. A lot of people wish someone would love them so much they were ready to fight a room full of armed people and a mutant who is basically unkillable.”  
Penny snorted. “Yeah, well...if he trusted me and believed me, he wouldn’t have too.”  
“You know love makes people blind. I would plunge myself into crocodile infested waters if it meant you’d be safe.” he admitted, looking at her with those big dark eyes.  
“I know Ned. And I’d do the same. But that doesn’t change the fact that he...I don’t know. It’s not just that he hacked my phone. Every time I think he finally trusts and respects me as Spider-Girl and as Penny he does something like that. And I feel like I’m constantly proving myself to him and... I feel like nothing is ever enough and I keep disappointing him with the choices I make.”  
“No, Penny! He loves you!” Neb objected strongly.  
“Yeah but that is not the same as respecting someone!” she shot back.  
Ned was silent for a moment, then he said: “I’m not sure what I can say Penny. Other than that you have to talk to him about that.”  
She sighed and closed her eyes, letting herself fall sideways until she leaned against him.  
“Yeah...I guess so.” she whispered.  
He put an arm around her.  
“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked.  
“Star Wars?” she asked.  
“What else is there?”  
.  
.  
After Ned had left Penny paced through the flat, phone in hand and hovering above Tony’s contact.  
His contact picture, a selfie of the two of them eating ice-cream, stared back at her.  
Tony's face was pressed flush against hers and he was doing a silly face, just like her.  
She hesitated, then turned the phone off and left it on the kitchen table with a note for May.  
She threw on dark jeans, a black hoodie and black converse before putting on her web-shooters and swung out into the evening.  
.  
“Another one Weasel.” she muttered.  
“I cannot endorse this.” Weasel said, folding his arms and glared at her. “You are clearly drunk and I don’t need a drunk super smashing up my bar more than it already is.”  
She glared right back at him and tried to lean over the counter to grab the bottle full of his special concoction just for her.  
Normally he wouldn’t have been able to evade her but she must have been really messed up if he was quicker than her and managed to pull the bottle away.  
She dragged herself back again and tried to sit up.  
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” drawled Wade next to her.  
Where had he come from?  
“As much as I was looking forward to the day where I could get you absolutely shit-faced...this is not what I had in mind. And honestly it's a bit sad.”  
“Fuck you.” she grunted. The room spun wildly.  
“You know, a lot of people are worried about you. So worried that Tony Stark called me. Twice. ME!”  
She ignored him, focusing on the pretty dancing lights right above his head.  
“Good god Weasel, what did you give her?” she heard Wade mutter.  
Then she was pulled up, her arm thrown over his shoulder and he manhandled her towards the exit.  
“Noooo…” she moaned. “I don’t want to leave. Weasel, help!”  
He just waved as Wade dragged her outside and into his car.  
He put her in the passenger side, buckled her up and then snapped his fingers at her.  
“Hey, eyes on me!”  
She glared at him, which was hard because there were like five of him and they kept appearing and disappearing.  
“I let a lot of shit fly when it comes to you but this...wallowing in self-pity and teenage angst and drinking yourself stupid, that is not the Penny Parker I know so stop it!”  
He flipped his index finger against her forehead.  
“OW!” she protested.  
“You will sleep off whatever you’ve been drinking at my place and tomorrow the world will go back to normal, you hear me?”  
“Fine.” She grumbled.  
“Good. And if you throw up in my car, I will leave you on the curb for the street cleaners! Or black-market organ-donor, whoever finds you first.”  
She remembered nothing after he shut her door.  
.  
.  
If she thought the hangover the had had the last time after drinking just a couple of Weasels special concoctions was bad, then this was absolute hell in comparison.  
She awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs and her stomach rolled around.  
She rolled over and retched into the bucket that had been conveniently been placed right next to her bedside.  
“Morning sunshine! Up and at ‘em! It’s a brand-new day! Carpe diem! Rise and shine!” Wade yelled over the sound of the Mexican music radio-station that was also blasting at full volume.”  
She buried her head in the pillows.  
“Okay, I get it, I learned my lesson!” she yelled.  
Her own voice sent spikes of pain into her brain.  
“What did you say?” he yelled back as he turned the music even louder.  
“I learned my lesson!” she yelled back louder.  
The music decreased and she sighed in relief.  
“And what lesson is that?” he asked.  
“Don’t drink your sorrows away.” she grumbled.  
“Almost.”  
Her relief was cut short because he approached her bedside and held the frying pan with the greasy bacon and eggs inside right underneath her nose.  
She gagged again and emptied whatever was left in her stomach into the bucket.  
“Yikes” he said above her “Yes, don’t drink your sorrows away but most importantly… don’t make people worry about you unnecessarily.” he added, putting the pan away.  
He was wearing one of those aprons that shoved the (almost) completely naked body of a woman on the front.  
And that was all he was wearing.  
As he turned around and walked back to the kitchen his blank ass wiggled along.  
That was enough to almost make her throw up again.  
Then, through the haze of the hungover she remembered something he had said last night.  
“Wait…” she sat up, slowly “Mr. Stark called you?”  
He nodded from where he stood, shovelling food into his mouth.  
“Yes. Called to clear the air so to speak. Wanted to hear about you and me and all that. Told him...well I didn’t tell him everything, I still want him to kinda like me. But I told him some of the things we’ve done together and all that. He seemed fine by the end of it. But then he called again, asking if I was with you. I said yes, even though you weren’t and went out to look for you. Then Weasel texted me, saying you were shitfaced and to get you. Man, Spidey. Never expected this to hit you this hard.”  
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand” she grumbled “You’re used to being betrayed and lied to and…” she shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought they would trust me more than that by now.”  
Wade sighed. “Look, life wouldn’t be interesting without some drama every now and then. In a few years we will all laugh about this. I will tell it at your wedding as a funny side-story. It’ll be fine.”  
She nodded. “Yeah. Ned said the same…” she muttered.  
“Come on, I’ll drive you home.”  
He took off the apron and threw it into the sink.  
“God, Wade! Put your dick away. I already threw up twice and I already saw our butt. Don’t make me throw up a third time by looking at your weird dick.”  
“My apartment, my clothing rules. Look away if you don’t want to see it!”  
Groaning Penny let herself fall back into the pillows.  
And yet she couldn’t help the small smile that sneaked its way onto her lips.  
Everything would be fine.  
.  
.  
.  
“Ahm...Wade?”  
“Yes Princess?”  
“This isn’t the way to Queens…”  
“We’re not going back to Queens.”  
“I thought you said you’d take me home?”  
“I am…”  
“Then where…”  
“I’m taking you to the Tower of course!”  
Penny spun around in her seat.  
“Wade, no! I’m not ready to face them!” he protested.  
“Yes, you are. The sooner you sort your shit out and get over it, the quicker things can go back to normal.”  
“I don’t know if I ever can get back to normal.” she admitted softly.  
He sighed, swerving around a group of cyclists, almost knocking all of them over.  
“I guess that will be one of the things you’ll have to talk about then.” he said. “No shut up, this is a great song.” he added and turned up the volume.  
He pulled up right in front of the Tower and turned to her.  
“Alright baby-doll this is it for you. In you go. And before you think about making a run for it, I already told them I’d be dropping you off. Tony will text me if you don’t get up there in the next five minutes.”  
She looked at him disgusted. “See, whenever I imagined what you two together would be like...you conspiring together against me was never one of the scenarios.”  
He shrugged. “Good. Predictability gets you killed. Now run along. I’ll see you soon.”  
She sighed and unbuckled.  
“Right. Thanks Wade.”  
“No problem Red. Now get out of here. Happy Hour is starting soon.”  
.  
Penny was nervous as the elevator took her upstairs to the penthouse.  
Would Tony be mad? Disappointed? Would the others be there?  
A sense of Deja vu overcame her as the elevator doors opened.  
She half expected to hear her full name again.  
But no.  
Instead of a welcoming committee like last time this time she walked into an empty living room.  
Slowly she took off her coat and hung it on the rack and kicked her shoes onto the pile by the elevator.  
On socks she walked on and peered around.  
“Hello?” she asked loudly.  
“Tony? Hello, is anyone home? Fuck Wade, there is nobody here…” she grumbled.  
“FRIDAY, where is everyone?” she asked.  
“Hello Ms. Parker. Boss is in the kitchen. Would you like me to inform him of your arrival?”  
“No, thanks FRI, I can announce myself.” she muttered and walked towards the kitchen.  
Tony wasn’t alone when she got there.  
Rhodey was there as well.  
He sat at the kitchen island, drinking tea and watched as Mr. Stark cooked.  
Mr. Stark always cooked when he was stressed.  
None of the two heard her approach.  
She wrapped her knuckles against the wooden panels along the wall.  
“Knock knock.” she said softly.  
Both men's heads snapped upwards.  
“Penny!” Mr. Stark whispered.  
“Hey kid.” Rhodey added, waving awkwardly.  
Penny stayed where she was, just as awkward.  
This was not what she had expected.  
“Wade dropped me off…” she offered as a way of explanation.  
Tony quickly towelled off his hands and then approached her but stopped right in front of her.  
“It’s good to see you kid.” he muttered.  
“Yeah...it’s good to see you too.” she admitted and as she said it, she felt it to be true.  
“Is...is it okay If I give you a hug?” he asked hesitantly.  
“Sure.” she muttered.  
The second he hugged her she melted away and sighed.  
“I’m sorry.” they said simultaneously.  
Tony laughed and released her.  
“You have nothing to be sorry for Penny. I…I had a long conversation with Wilson and…he set a few things straight. I’m sorry for overreacting.” He whispered.  
“I’m sorry too Tony. I should have been more honest with you. Maybe then all of this could have been avoided. But...I didn’t know how you would react and... I thought I could keep it from all of you. I should have known better.” she admitted.  
“No kiddo. I should have trusted you more. And I should have given you a chance to explain. You were right to keep it from me. I didn’t exactly react great. I understand why you were hesitant.”  
He shook his head.  
“Sometimes I forget that you were Spider-Girl long before we met and... that there is a part of your story and your journey that I am not a part of. There are things about you that I don’t know. And that is fine, you don’t have to tell me everything. It just feels weird because you feel like you’ve always been a part of my life. Because you just fit in Penny. And I’m sorry I jeopardized that. Please know that I respect you and the choices you have made in your life to help others and that I admire you and I wish there were more people out there like you.”  
She sniffled. “Please don’t make my cry Mr. Stark. I’ve been doing far too much crying lately.”  
He laughed, a real honest and light laugh.  
“You and me both honey. So... what do you say? You think you can give me another chance? I promise, I've learned my lesson. From now on I will not believe everything I see on the internet. Not without fact-checking it first!”  
“Yeah.” she whispered, then cleared her throat, “There’s no need for a second chance Mr. Stark. I understand what you did, you did because you care. I understand that sometimes people make dumb mistakes when they worry for the people they care about. But there is no need for a second chance. You never lost the first one to begin with.”  
He gently pushed an errand strand of hair behind her ear.  
“The world doesn’t deserve you Penny. I certainly don’t deserve you. But thank you.”  
He hugged her again and Penny searched for Rhode’s eyes over his shoulder.  
“That goes for all of you. Thank you for looking out for me. I really appreciate it. But maybe we have to have a talk about certain boundaries.” she told him.  
Rhodey nodded. “Sounds good Penny. It’s great to have you back.”  
.  
.  
It was late when Penny sat up in her bed and listened for anyone who might still be awake.  
Nothing.  
She reached under her bed and pulled out her Spider-Suit.  
She had meant every word she had said to Tony and all four of them had had a long conversation about boundaries and trust and privacy and it had been a good talk.  
But as she pried open the housing of the spider-symbol on her chest she knew she wasn’t there yet.  
She wasn’t completely ready just yet.  
_I need just a little bit more time_ , she thought and turned the GPS-tracker off.


End file.
